How long can we evolve?

I keep hearing about everything looking to evolve in the near future.  With new releases such as Web 3.0, people are excited about the changes being made, but even with new technology on the horizon, people still look for more.  I'm kinda worried about how much things can actually evolve in this scenario.  Why can't things just stay the way they are for a few years?

Let's take gaming consoles as an example.  People enjoy the current systems and games if what I'm hearing is correct.  Yet, just with computer technology, new consoles are just around the corner.  Now, hey, I'm all for getting new and innovative games that look and play swimmingly.  But why is there always a necessity for something "better"?  Even when people buy a new console, there's already talk about the next generation.  But this can't continue, can it?  Eventually, we cannot evolve any further.  I'm just concerned about when we will hit that point.  What will happen, to let's say the gaming industry, when developers run out of ideas for consoles, or they just try too hard to be innovative and flop.  The thing is, even as an aspiring game developer myself, I'm constantly worried about the stability of these types of things.  We keep looking for "better" games and "better" graphics and never seem to be satisfied.

Well I'm just here to say that I AM satisfied.  I still take a moment when playing a game such as Tales of Vesperia or NBA 2K11 and marvel at the graphics and color schemes, especially when I decide to turn on the old NES and go into nostalgia mode.  Anyways, I'm not sure where this thought came from or why I'm blogging about it.  Maybe it stems from my dislike of where gaming companies are going these days (i.e. Kinect, the obsession with 3D gaming, and the clusterfuck of motion control) or perhaps it's just a random thought, who knows.  All I know is that I won't be surprised when the day that evolution fails arrives.

Mobile gaming needs to go

Alright, first off, I'm going to say that I do understand the appeal of having access to games on a mobile phone.  Yes it is entertaining and convenient, as well as a great pathway for indie developers to get their hands wet.

However.

I seriously cannot stand the support they're getting.  Take this recent article from Mashable for instance:
http://mashable.com/2010/10/11/the-sims-3-and-other-ea-games-headed-for-windows-phone-7/
A game that thousands if not millions of people play on their PCs now have access to it via the new Windows 7 Phone.  This sounds good to many of you I'm sure.  But let's be honest...how much time will you spend playing this on your phone when you could be getting a much richer experience on the PC version?  That's the main issue I have with mobile games.  For me personally, I only play games on my iTouch when I'm waiting for a class or on a car ride.  But even then it's only for roughly ten minutes before I get bored.  There's just not enough motivation for me to play a game on a mobile phone when I could be getting so much more out of playing on my 360 or PC.

That's what I associate gaming with though.  Console/PC gaming is what I believe to be true gaming.  Handhelds such as the Nintendo DS and PSP count as well, as they produce AAA titles such as Dissidia and Pokemon.  But in my eyes, using mobile devices such as the iPad, iPhone, Android, and now the Windows 7 Phone just seems like a fake.  These games are the off-brand food that you buy in the store, and while some off-brand food is tasty, you get much more enjoyment out of the real thing.  It irritates me to see so much money, time, and effort put into the mobile games when, quite honestly, nobody is going to pay much attention to them in the first place.  Quite honestly, I don't think I will ever have the desire to purchase a game for a mobile device.  There's nothing impressive or innovative about them, and they're pretty much akin to the random flash games you played when the internet was young and Yahoo! Games was your main timesink (don't deny it, we've all played them).

Perhaps I'm missing out on what could be an awesome gaming experience.  Or maybe I'm right.  Who knows.  But what I do know is that all of that talent and innovative-ness could be focused on "true gaming", but instead, is wasted on this "imitation gaming".  So if you walk up to me and tell me, "Play this awesome game on my iPhone it's better than sliced bread!!!1!!!1!111", don't expect me to give a shit.

Phoenix Down: MAGD style!

Ah, the phoenix down.  An RPG player's favorite item to have in handy during boss fights.  If you're not familiar with the term, a "Phoenix Down" revives a fallen character/ally/whatever.  So for our project in SMO, it was a goal of mine to help revive the MAGD page on Facebook and give it some new life.  And I think I did a pretty nice job.

First off, I shared numerous stories on the page's wall.  From gaming news to articles on Mashable, I would immediately throw the link on MAGD's wall for other people to see if I thought it was interesting, as well as putting it on my own status.  I also typed some well-thought out responses to the various stories the MAGD admins shared on their status, and gave as much feedback as I could.  Another contribution was simply suggesting the page to friends.  I got about 10 people out of my friends list that were interested in MAGD to "like" the page, boosting page awareness.  Finally, I helped establish some user-created content by submitting a simple photo I created in Photoshop using the progression of Mario combined with the MAGD logo.  It wasn't meant to be anything spectacular, but I believe that any user-created content really helps to boost activity.

There were also a few things I was dissapointed with during the beginning of this project.  I don't think we did a great job promoting our event, "Friday game days", as even I was confused as to what, where, and when the event even was.  To fix this, I think we can all promote it better as well as setting up a more informative event page.  Secondly, there wasn't too much of a group effort.  I noticed that there was little communication amongst ourselves which may have held us back.  Simple solution: more communication.

Other than that, I think we did a great job in spreading the word and getting more activity on the page.  We had a few flaws in our group work but overall, this is a great start to getting more people involved with MAGD!

Ultimate Challenge: Level 1-6

The "final" episode where teamwork is necessary, the final boss just dies, and the cake is definitely a lie.

An Outside Perspective

Ego surfing.  I'm sure everyone has done it at some point.  Inputting your own name into the mainstream search engines such as Google or Bing and looking at the results.  Usually people find out information about a "John Smith" living in Alaska instead of themselves.  For me, however, this process didn't reveal too many new and exciting details since my name isn't quite so popular.  If I searched my own name on Google, I'd find my Facebook profile, my Twitter account, and a few other things associated with me.  Out of the results, I knew that 99% of them existed.  The other 1% was made up of another "me" that made a few random forum postings, but overall, nothing too impressive.  However, I thought that it would be quite interesting if someone that didn't know me were to look at these results.  They would probably be able to tell that I played tennis in high school due to some old newspaper articles highlighting scores of my past matches.  They would also be able to tell that I'm associated with "Hoo's Woods" (a local bird of prey education center) since I created an entire website about the organization.  It was interesting to find that someone could get to know your interests and hobbies just by searching your name on the internet.

While I was pretty satisfied with the results of my surfing, I was a little disappointed to know that the Dalton Miatke I saw on the internet isn't the person that I want people to know.  One of my goals for this semester is to change that.  Seeing as how my profession of choice is within the gaming industry, I would like to create a more gaming/tech-oriented profile of myself.  I want to associate myself with the industry and start the process of being involved in the social media world.  Another goal of mine is to just become more educated.  Looking at that list of people on the first day of class, I felt that I should have known more than I did.  By keeping up to date with everything going on and establishing a routine of checking sites such as "Mashable" and updating Twitter and Facebook daily, I hope to become more knowledgeable about social media in general.  I'm definitely looking forward to all that this course has to offer.